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About Me: Jessica A. Horani

I am a criminal defense attorney in Manhattan with over 15 years of combined experience defending people accused of crimes in both Florida and New York. I always wanted to be a defense attorney; since I first read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 12 and felt the unjust indignation of seeing an innocent man condemned by social bigotry and the noble quality of the one man who stood by him. I received my Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan in 2001 where I fell in love with the law and the City. One of those loves was put on hold as I was hired out of law school by the Miami-Dade County Public Defender’s Office in Florida. I began my career as an Assistant Public Defender in the Domestic Violence division with my first jury verdict only months after making the move from New York to sunny Miami. I won every case I and my trial partners took to trial that first year and cemented my love for trial work as well as the feeling of standing next to a client and hearing the words ‘Not Guilty’. Prior to my admission in 2008 to the New York Bar; I was given special permission under a pro hac vice admission to work as a Staff Attorney at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem in New York City, a community based law office providing comprehensive defense services to indigent clients.